WORCESTER — The Telegram & Gazette has launched a new initiative called Worcester Connects — The Center for Community Engagement, which consists of a website, speaker series and other programs.

The initiative hopes to bring "together people, ideas and solutions to shape the future of Worcester County," according to Averil Capers, who has been named director of the center. Ms. Capers is also the director of marketing and research for the T&G.

The center will focus on six main topic areas, Ms. Capers said. They are business, community, education, culture, faith and health care.

A main component of the center is its website, www.WorcesterConnects.com, which will serve as a platform for an idea and information exchange. The site is populated with commentary and opinion pieces that community leaders have written. The public is encouraged to post their thoughts as well, and all must register with their first and last name to do so.

"This will allow for a higher level of discourse among those posting and commenting," Ms. Capers said.

Among the leaders, called "Community Connectors," who will be contributing to the site are: Timothy P. Murray, president and chief executive officer of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce; Linda Cavaioli, executive director of the YWCA of Central Massachusetts; the Rev. Clyde D. Talley, pastor of Belmont A.M.E. Zion Church; and Juan A. Gomez, president and chief executive officer of Centro Las Americas.

Others Community Connectors represent higher education, local government, the arts and the business community.

Fallon Community Health Plan has signed on as a visionary sponsor of the initiative.

Publisher Bruce Gaultney said he sees the center's effort to encourage more community engagement as a logical extension of the newspaper's traditional role in encouraging debate on local topics.

A cornerstone of Worcester Connects is a Distinguished Speaker Series at The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts. It will begin on Nov. 6 with former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Other speakers early next year include Dr. Benjamin Carson, Dee Dee Myers and Geoffrey Canada. (Tickets are available only as a subscription package now, but will be sold for individual speakers closer to the date of each talk.)

The Telegram & Gazette will gauge Worcester Connects' success by the number of registrations and returning visitors, the nature of the dialogue on the site and, ultimately, Ms. Capers said, "seeing positive changes take place in Worcester from those types of conversations and sharing of information."

Allen Fletcher, former owner of Worcester Magazine, visited the Worcester Connects website and described it as "somewhere between the blogosphere and Facebook."

"I think the question is, Would I use it? And my answer is an emphatic maybe," he said. "It seemed to be a community of people who probably have influence on the community… There are probably things that I'd like to grab them and shake them by the lapels about… This is the perfectly appropriate forum for that."

Worcester Connects is not a common model in the newspaper industry. Other cities, like Springfield, have speakers series aimed at civic dialogue, but Springfield's is free and not affiliated with the local newspaper. The World Company, a news organization in Lawrence, Kan., has WellCommons.com, a partnership with a local hospital that combines journalism and social media around health issues, but WorcesterConnects is separate from the Telegram & Gazette's news content.

Rick Edmonds, media business analyst and leader of news transformation at the Poynter Institute in Florida, said, "It may be that a sort of a special-purpose site that's different from the news site is a way to build audience and build engagement with the community."

Worcester Connects is giving the newspaper a chance to highlight other connections it has with the community, too, such as a course on urban journalism taught by Clark University and Nichols College faculty right in the newsroom.

The course was taught for the first time last year and is continuing this fall.

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